1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to aggregated packets, and more particularly in one example to the including of Fountain-encoded error correction coding information into an aggregated packet such an A-MPDU in an IEEE 802.11 communication.
2. Background Information
In a communication system such as a WiFi communication system compliant with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.11n standard, the communication of MAC (Medium Access Control) Protocol Data Units (MPDUs) can involve substantial protocol processing overhead due to a receiver of MPDUs having to return either an ACK (acknowledgement frame) or a NAK (negative acknowledgement frame) for each MPDU received. To reduce the overhead of having to handle these many ACK/NAK occurrences, the standard provides for a number of MPDUs to be transmitted in back-to-back fashion as a single Aggregated-MPDU (A-MPDU). Rather than the receiver having to acknowledge each MPDU separately, the receiver of the A-MPDU only need return one Block ACK (BA) per A-MPDU. There are, however, often limitations associated with the use of A-MPDUs that can lead to reduced transmission rates in some situations. Ways are sought to improve communication systems that use such A-MPDUs.